Saturday, March 27, 2010

It is not often that I feel uncomfortable in my own home. Today is one of those days.

I have heard it said that the state of your home reflects the state of your mind - that is, if your home is highly organized, you tend to be very precise and methodical, and conversely, if your home is a jumbled mess, odds are your mind is too.If this is true, and I highly suspect it is, my mind is a giant crapheap right now.

You see, my parents decided to replace their kitchen appliances, and offered their old appliances to me - YAY!! Here's the problem - their appliances don't fit into the spaces where our previous appliances were sitting. My parents (and now my family) owned the Most Ginormous Fridge Ever Manufactured, with double doors, ice maker and water dispenser...to fit in the place of a regulation sized "normal fridge". We now also own a flattop stove, to fit in the place of a gas stove (which I secretly loathed, but because I hate cooking, I tolerated....on a side note, I guess all my excuses about not being able to cook properly with gas will now go out the window and I will need to learn how to cook something more substantial than Kraft Dinner...YIKES!)

Enter GF, who proudly proclaims that he can and will make them fit - by taking out an entire section of the kitchen, cutting down cupboards, moving said cupboards to new locations, reinstalling counters, and building up floor spaces that were never previously tiled because there used to be cupboards in the way.

It all sounds very well and good, and I am sure I will love the final product, HOWEVER, the process is making me crazy. I am a "just get it done" or Tim Gunn-style "Make It Work" kind of girl. GF is not of the same persuasion - he is more the "I can't visualize it until it is actually in front of me" kind of guy, which is insanity provoking in all it's unplannedness.

In taking out all the cupboards, I have had to find somewhere to store all the "stuff" in the meantime (namely my dining room table, any available counterspace, my living room, and the rest of the kitchen - all out in plain view, a la crapheap at its finest!) , and in replacing the old appliances, I need to be patient with the fact that I now have 4 appliances instead of 2, and that NONE of them are in their correct homes, rather, they are all taking up space at various locations on my main level.

To add to this insanity, GF is having a dozen people or so over tonight to watch some big UFC thing (I have never understood nor appreciated the allure of UFC, but then he doesn't understand my obsession with What Not To Wear either). Normally, I would be scurrying around in an attempt to have my house looking "perfect" for their arrival, and instead I am just trying to navigate around pots and pans and Tupperware and power tools.

Oh Good Gravy, what were we thinking indeed? I just pray the appliances fit and my kids are well behaved and nothing gets broken and GF does not lose his patience and that I make it to the other side of this adventure with some semblance of sanity left.....yeah....not too much to ask, right?

Friday, March 26, 2010

**note - we are NOT going to talk about the fact that it has been almost a year since I have last posted - once you read this post, you may understand why I took the big break. So as for mentioning it, just don't. Seriously, don't.***

Let's face it - I am not good at change. Which is not to say that I cannot change, because I can and often do. It's probably more accurate to say that change makes me uncomfortable.I am a creature of habit, and once I establish a routine, I like it, more like need it, to stay that way.So here is the problem: I have just recently returned to daytime work 3 days a week. The job is lovely, my coworkers are lovely and the fact that I no longer clean toilets and showers for hours at a time is LOVELY. However, this new venture upsets the carefully crafted status quo around here.My being a stay at home mom was purely in name only - I was never really at home! And if I was, I was so busy with cleaning and maintaining and projects that it was not one of those sit-on-your-butt-in-front-of-the-television-eating-bon-bons type of things. Here is a sample of my schedule:

MONDAY: take kids to the Gym, workout for 2 hours, home, lunch, nap, laundry, make dinner, go to work 6-12(I was an evening shift cleaner)TUESDAY: take the Lamb (my daughter) to school, grocery shopping with the Monkey (my youngest son), other errands, home, lunch, nap, pick up Lamby, make dinner, go to work 6-12WEDNESDAY: head to Bible Study with the kids, home, lunch, nap, drive 1/2 hour to pick up Fidget (my oldest son), home, make dinner, family games night, take Fidget home, come home myself, spend quality time with The Goldfish (aka GF, Goldie, the Fish, or my husband...I will explain these names later) fall into bed around midnightTHURSDAY: arise before the birds (3:45am) and head to the Bar to clean (in addition to being a night cleaner, I also clean a restaurant 4 mornings a week), home, take Lamb to school, home to clean, do laundry, catch up on homework from Bible study or other misc. jobs not completed, lunch, nap, pick up Lamb, dinner, take kids to Gym, work out for 2 hours, home, fall into bedFRIDAY: clean the Bar, home, gather kids for swimming, head to Gym for their lessons, work out for 2.5 hours, home, lunch, nap, every other week pick up Fidget, make dinner, go to work 6-12SATURDAY: clean the Bar, sometimes work out, home, work on projects around the house, or sewing, or rest, lunch, nap, dinner, church, home, bedSUNDAY: clean the Bar, every other week head to church to lead Sunday School lesson, sometimes go to the in-laws for lunch, home, nap, dinner, take Fidget home if I have him, home, BED

Sounds like a lot right? YEP. That is just how it was. Now imagine that I try to stick 24 hours of working in an office in there. Oh sure the nighttime cleaning job goes, but not the morning one. And laundry never disappears, nor does house cleaning, groceries, Lamb's school, or all those other mom-related jobs I did. My trouble is learning how to juggle it all around so it FITS. And feels COMFORTABLE. I find the first thing to go is anything related to my own comfort or enjoyment - like working out or napping. But I really NEED to work out. And some days, say, Thursdays and Fridays, I really NEED to nap.

I just need to find a schedule that works for all of us. And then once I have it - WATCH OUT - because I can rock a set schedule like nobody's business. And rock it I will.....as soon as I figure it out. But first, I have some cleaning to do....